People of the Earth (42 page)

 
          
 
White Ash stopped and pointed to the top of
the rise where the drifts melted against the sky. "Someone's there!"

           
 
"Those are elk!" Bad Belly
protested, shielding his eyes to look up the slope.

 
          
 
"There's someone there. Sitting in the
midst of the elk," White Ash insisted.

 
          
 
Bad Belly squinted against the light. The elk
seemed unconcerned as they grazed along the saddle he and White Ash climbed
toward. He could see the curious shape. It did look like a man.

 
          
 
"It's probably just a hunter's trick of
some sort. Maybe a rock cairn piled up to look like a man on a drive line. Look
at the elk. They're feeding, not worried at all. I know elk, they're smarter
than people. The wouldn't just stand there if a person were so close. I'll bet
it's a cairn."

 
          
 
"I don't know. I've got this ..."

 
          
 
"This what?"

 
          
 
"Funny feeling," she said nervously,
refusing to take her eyes off the horizon.

 
          
 
They climbed up the bottom of a snow-filled
valley between the shoulders of two mountains. They had spotted the low saddle
from below, thinking it a reasonable place to cross south into the
Wind
Basin
. The rocky slopes around them were crumbled
and worn where gray outcrops had cracked and tumbled angular detritus down the
mountain's flanks. Bit-
terbrush
and occasional sage
dotted the steep, rocky soil, as did tawny grasses partially hidden by snow.
The vegetation burnished the ground with a light tan. Serviceberry and squaw
currant clung to the crevices and irregular drainages. Up to their left, a
forlorn grove of aspen waited in a snow-locked hollow. Patchy clouds raced west
on the
midday
wind.

 
          
 
"Funny feeling?" Bad Belly looked
around. "I guess I can feel it, too." He looked down at Trouble. The
unconcerned dog flopped down to chew the snow out from between the pads on his
feet.

 
          
 
"Let's go back," White Ash
suggested, almost pleading.

 
          
 
Bad Belly stamped to fight the chill in his
bark-wrapped toes. "If we go back through all that snow we just climbed
across, my feet are going to freeze. We're on the north slope here, and we're
hip-deep in snow. I'm miserably cold as it is—getting colder while we just
stand here. It's no more than two dart casts to the top and warm sunlight. I
say it's a rock cairn of some sort."

 
          
 
. She sucked at her lips, guilt in her eyes at
the mention of the bark he wore so she could have the warm moccasins. "I
suppose you're right. Let's hurry then. I feel something . . . like being
watched. And that thing up there—human or not— isn't helping any."

 
          
 
"The elk wouldn't stand there like that.
You'll see. The instant they catch sight of us, they'll be gone as fast as . .
. well, as scared elk."

 
          
 
She nodded halfheartedly as Bad Belly forced
his shivering body past her to break a trail through the crusted drifts.

 
          
 
I’m always cold these days, he grumbled
inwardly, feeling his stiff muscles protest. His feet had gone numb hours ago.
Only moving, keeping the painful circulation in his feet, had saved him from
frostbite so far—maybe. If he was lucky.

 
          
 
One of the cow elk raised her head—and stared
right into his eyes. She took a step forward, her nose lifted high, testing the
breeze. They were too far to hear her warning bark, but the entire herd wheeled
and disappeared as if they'd never been there.

 
          
 
"Magical creatures," Bad Belly said
in praise. Only that curious black silhouette remained, hauntingly human. The
figure rested on the horizon, backlit by the sun like a small nipple on the
crest of the saddle.

 
          
 
White Ash muttered under her breath. Despite
the fact that she walked behind him, he could feel her gaze fixed on that human
form.

 
          
 
Bad Belly winced at the bitter cold numbing
his toes and shuffled ahead. When they crested the ridge, he'd be on the sunny
side. Maybe they'd find a place where the rocks radiated the heat so he could
sit and warm his chill-pained limbs.

 
          
 
"Strips of woven bark were never made to
be walked in," Bad Belly declared. "The Antelope People might get by
with it, but they live in the south. Left Hand says the only snow they get down
there is just a dusting that melts with the noonday sun. What do we get? Drifts
that blow around all winter and make a man's joints ache."

 
          
 
White Ash remained ominously silent.

           
 
The figure rested no more than a dart's throw
away now, and Bad Belly had to flail his way through the snow as they
encountered the cornice of a huge drift. In the lee of the wall of snow, he
lost sight of the figure.

 
          
 
“I don't like this," White Ash whispered,
a tremor in her voice. "If anyone is up there, he could walk out on
snow-shoes and drive a dart right through us from top to bottom."

 
          
 
"Thank you, I needed to hear that,"
Bad Belly replied under his breath, using his elbows to break the crusted
surface. Underneath, the snow had become granular, like gravelly ice.

 
          
 
Panting, he crawled through the hole he'd
mashed in the drift and reached back, offering his good hand to pull White Ash
through. Trouble buck-jumped his way up the loose snow, scrambling and clawing
to get onto the hard crust above.

 
          
 
Bad Belly had begun to shiver again, as the
cold ate into his flesh. He tried to catch his breath as he turned and
struggled toward better footing where the rocks poked out. One step out of two
broke through the hardened crust; then he felt rock underfoot.

 
          
 
"Made it," he declared, gasping.

 
          
 
Trouble had come to a halt, nose working as he
scented the wind. Generally, when he smelled elk, he rushed forward, eager to
sniff the scat and poke his nose into the tracks. Now he stood frozen.

 
          
 
"Oh, no." White Ash had stopped
short.

 
          
 
Bad Belly blinked against the bright sunlight
and stared.

 
          
 
A timeworn old man sat watching them through
placid black eyes. He rested on a rock, legs crossed, white hair wrapped in a
beaver-skin hat. A robe made from finely tanned mountain sheepskin lay on his
shoulders.

 
          
 
The man's face riveted Bad Belly's attention.
Old, terribly old. Wrinkles had grooved the features, running down from the
corners of the eyes to bracket a thin-lipped mouth. As with most old people,
the nose had grown out of proportion to the face, dominating his visage. As if
to mock the sag of facial skin, the eyes burned, lit by an inner Power that
dwarfed Bad Belly's soul.

           
 
Fear knotted tighter than wet rawhide thongs
in Bad Belly's breast, but he stepped forward, calling, "Greetings,
Grandfather!
Lot
of snow back there.
Lot
of . . ."

 
          
 
The figure remained still, as if it might have
grown out of the gravelly soil, or eroded from the surrounding rock—part of the
mountain's bones.

 
          
 
Bad Belly shivered, partially from the cold,
partially from the way his soul quaked as he stared into those forever eyes.
"White Ash? Try talking to him in Sun People talk."

 
          
 
She stood paralyzed beside him, her grip
tightening until his hand hurt. He glanced at her and found her lips parted, a
glazing in her eyes. Trouble had circled to stand behind them, ears cocked as
he watched the figure.

 
          
 
The old man spoke, his voice like sand grating
between two blocks of wood. "You need not talk in the language of the Sun
People, Still Water. That will come in its time."

 
          
 
Bad Belly tried to swallow against the clamp
in his throat. "You . . . you know me?"

 
          
 
"It's been a while, Man of the People.
You were younger then."

 
          
 
Bad Belly stepped forward as if he were
walking over rattlesnakes. He studied the withered face, seeking the
familiarity that tickled at the corners of his memory. "Singing
Stones?" he asked in wonder. "You are . . . Singing Stones?"

 
          
 
The old man nodded ever so slowly. "I was
him."

 
          
 
"Was?" Bad Belly choked. Not a ghost
. . . tell me he's not a Spirit!

 
          
 
The old man spoke again. "What is any
man? A name? A name consists of words, sounds uttered from the mouth. Once I
thought I was someone called Singing Stones. A name is folly, illusion."

 
          
 
"W-What do I call you then?"

 
          
 
"Call me Singing Stones. It will be
easier for you, for the time being."

 
          
 
"Time . . . being?"

 
          
 
"You and White Ash are shivering. Come, I
know a place for you to rest and warm yourselves. I have food there."

           
 
Singing Stones rose slowly. Turning to face
the sun, he let its rays shine on the furrowed seams of his weathered skin.

 
          
 
"How do you know me?" White Ash
asked in a husky voice.

 
          
 
The old man took a deep breath, as if the
sensation of breathing itself pleased him. Without turning, he said, "I've
known you for many seasons, White Ash. You've filled my Dreams. To a Dreamer,
time loses itself, becoming less and more than living people think. I might
have missed you had not the Trader, Left Hand, come by my camp. He told me he'd
thought to bring Bad Belly to me. Had he done so, Bad Belly wouldn't have been
there for you when you needed him. First Man took a hand, weaving the pattern
Warm Fire had begun . . . and Left Hand had taken up."

 
          
 
“You came to meet us? You knew we would cross
this pass today?"

 
          
 
Singing Stones turned, no expression on his
face. "I didn't know you would be here today. I only knew you would be
here. I have watched two sunrises since I came to await your arrival."

 
          
 
"Two days? Just sitting there? And you
didn't freeze?" Bad Belly shook his head, awed.

 
          
 
"I didn't freeze. My stay was refreshing.
You can feel the earth up here, and hear the sky. The One comes more easily
since illusion can be discarded with ease. I called the elk to come share their
thoughts with me. Elk are delightful company. They are more knowledgeable than
people think."

 
          
 
"You called them? Talked to them?"
White Ash asked, staring, her mouth open.